Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It’s nearing midnight and Lance is extremely drunk when he gets the call.

“Veronica?” His slurred, exhausted speech somehow disappears at the contact that appeared on his screen, the sound of her name earning him shocked glances from Hunk and Pidge, who were sprawled out on the floor of his apartment. “Is something wrong?”

Ever since Lance moved to the city six years ago, his family had slowly grown more and more distant in their calls. He rarely heard from them, unless it was to wish him an obligated happy birthday or happy holiday. It wasn’t their fault he decided to abandon his home with them, but their silence screamed louder than any disappointment they could ever voice to him.

The McClain family had always been tight knit, built on nothing but love and trust for each other. It was just them in their small town back home, running the ranch with nothing more than their bare hands and sheer determination to keep the family name alive. Lance leaving everything he knew to branch out was practically treason. Sure, his family supported him every step of the way, but he still moved on his own. Nobody helped him pack a single thing.

It was freeing, the city. He signed with the modeling agency of his dreams, Lionel Castle , meeting his now best friends through it - Pidge and Hunk. They offered him more support when managing the bustling city than any McClain ever dared to attempt.

So, for Veronica to call out of the blue on a random Tuesday night was not on Lance’s bingo card for the month.

Especially not when she drops the bomb that she’s getting married.

“… you’re what?” Lance had practically sobered completely up when hearing the words I’m getting married! slip from his older sister’s mouth. He hadn’t even known she was dating anybody, let alone was fucking engaged. “To who? When? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Oh, gosh, I really am sorry, Lance,” Veronica continued, sighing softly on the other end of the line. “It’s been so busy with all the weddin’ planning that I completely forgot to reach out. You’re my baby brother, and I really want you here. Your invitation must’ve gotten lost in the mail.”

Lost in the mail = we forgot to send you one. Okay. Lance frowned, shaking his head once when Pidge offered him a look of questioning, their head tilting in a way of asking, is everything okay? “Okay. Of course I’d be there. When is it?”

“… next friday?” Veronica murmured weakly.

“Next week,” Lance parroted. “You’re getting married next week , and you forgot to tell me?”

“Lance, please, can we not?” His older sister half scoffed, the desperation evident in her tone. “I said I’m sorry. The family wants to see you. It’s been years. We miss you.”

He gnawed on his bottom lip, shifting on his couch to curl his legs up, knees bent and tucked against his chest, his free hand draped over his pajama pants. The bottle of vodka and its accompanied shot glasses remained forgotten about on the coffee table, any desire to get any more drunk withered away with the reminder of how little his family seemed to care about him.

It had been completely out of character for them to just isolate themselves from him, but after so many years, it was hard to determine just who started distancing from who first. Maybe it was him, from how busy his life suddenly got. Maybe it was them.

“Lance?”

“No, no, it’s fine. I’ll be there,” He confirmed, doing the calculations in his head. He had ten days to book a last minute flight to Texas, get fitted for a new suit, find a hotel to stay in, get a gift-

“You’ll bring Keith too, right?”

Lance almost choked on air at the question. “...Keith?”

Hunk and Pidge gawked up at their friend the moment the name of his ex boyfriend fell from his mouth.

Keith Kogane. The boy Lance dated when he was nineteen. The one he grew up with, who lived on the farm in the town over, a good distance away from the place he grew up. The one Lance had allowed himself to fall helplessly in love with, only for him to destroy it all single handedly when he told him he was moving.

The boyfriend Lance had coincidentally forgotten to tell his family he’d broken up with all those years ago, in a final attempt to not earn any more disappointment from them. They loved Keith. Hell, Lance was sure they liked Keith more than they liked him. He was charming, good looking, independent, hard working-

and absolutely, 100%, not Lance’s boyfriend anymore.

But, of course, Lance, the approval seeking boy he was, drunkenly blurted out that yes, Keith would in fact be there.

As his plus one.

To a wedding.

When he, in fact, has not seen Keith Kogane in over six years.

And was 98% sure the other boy hated his guts.

Great.

“Oh, that’s great!” Veronica chirped, her voice cutting through Lance’s drunken haze he had found himself falling into, his world blurring around him as memories of stupid Keith flooded his brain. “We haven’t seen him in forever !”

“Yep,” Lance cringed. “He’ll be there. For sure.”

The line went dead ten minutes later after Veronica spewed out details about the wedding, her mood strangely perky the moment her brother confirmed Keith was to be there.

“I’m so fucked.”

“You think? ” Pidge gawked, their brown eyes wide as they studied Lance like he was some piece of mechanical technology they worked on in that lab of theirs. “You just said Keith was going to be at your sister’s wedding.”

“Keith, as in, you know, your ex boyfriend who you haven’t seen in six years? ” Hunk added, the culinary student wearing a matching expression to the engineer at his side. “Lance. Dude. That’s insanity.”

“I know,” Lance groaned, grabbing a pillow to suffocate himself in. “I- I didn’t know what to say! She caught me so off guard with that one!”

“You are so, so hopeless,” Pidge sighed, a hand dragging down their slim face in exasperation. “How in the world are you going to pull this off? It’s not like you can just go begging on Keith’s doorstep to play boyfriend for the week so you can go to this thing. He’s never going to agree with that!”

Lance turned to blink at Pidge, a stupid, shit-eating grin creeping its way onto his face. “Pidge. You’re a genius.”

“There is absolutely no way this is going to work,” Hunk chimed in, batting away Pidge’s flying hands. “Doesn’t the guy hate you?”

“A little,” Lance shrugged. “I just gotta put my southern charm back on and he’ll be my boyfriend again. For a week. With no romantic affiliation involved. At all. Obviously.”

Pidge and Hunk shared a glance. This was by far the worst idea Lance had ever had in his entire life.

“We’ll help you.” Pidge sighed.

Chapter Text

“This is going to be absolutely miserable.”

“You’re telling me,” Lance huffed, shifting to sit on top of his suitcase so Hunk could easily zip it shut. Even with the amount of belongings the model needed for only a week-long trip, his luggage remained under the required weight limit, somehow. “I’m going to show up to this wedding with no Keith and they’re all going to hate me.”

“They don’t hate you,” Pidge sighed, tossing Lance his now full carry on, the blue backpack consisting of all his necessities. Which, were a lot. He was a model - he had to keep his image, even in the middle of nowhere. “They’re still your family. They’d be happy to see you, Keith or not.”

Lance simply bowed his head and let his friends help with the rest of his packing. He knew it was a lot more complicated than that.

The breakup had been messy on its own. No amount of alcohol could drown out the memory of that night, standing outside Keith’s door while the other boy slammed the door in his face. Lance didn’t know how long he had stared down the wooden frame, but every detail of the material showed up in his dreams consistently and there was nothing he could do but bear witness to the consequences of his own actions. He was haunted by Keith Kogane, through and through, for the past 2379 days since that door hit its mark, and for the rest of his time living on this planet.

Though, while one door closed, another opened, and that was the door to the city. Lance took that opportunity like a key fitting perfectly in a patiently awaiting lock, fleeing from his small hometown in Texas and venturing alone to New York, quickly signing with Lionel Castle and meeting Hunk and Pidge. The two of them put him on his feet, and he genuinely had no idea where he’d be without them by his side. He definitely wouldn’t be boarding a flight back to Texas.

Lance shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“Only one way to find out!” Hunk chirped, nudging Lance off his suitcase so he could stand it up, tugging the handle from its slider, and handing it off to his friend. “You’ll be fine, Lance.”

“Keep us updated!” Pidge added, a hand resting on their hip. “Worst case scenario, you fly back home. Waco isn’t far from your town, right?”

The model shrugged halfheartedly. “Nah. It- it’ll be fine.”

It wasn’t long after that Hunk and Pidge hurried him from the apartment, shoved him in his car, and to the airport. Bittersweet hugs were exchanged, and with further reminders that he was going to be just fine, Lance was off on his own, heading back home for the first time in over six years.

There was nobody to greet him at the gate. Obviously. It wasn’t like he was expecting anybody to be there - he hadn’t even told anybody he was showing up a week early.

Lance had left from Waco Texas alone, and here he was all this time later, returning alone.

He wasn’t having fun.

His headphones weren’t enough to drown out the crying baby in economy, even from his seat up in first class, the turbulence was horrid , and now the best truck at the car rental was a piece of shit.

The engine creaked to life, and Lance took that moment as it was coughing up its revival to rest his head on the steering wheel, fingers wrapped tightly around the leather as he contemplated every damn action he’d ever taken in his life. He knew the next few hours were going to be miserable. Everything that should’ve been easy leading up to him showing back up at Keith’s door became some of the biggest obstacles he’d faced in a long while, and Lance wanted nothing more than to take this truck and ride it all the way back up to New York.

The drive to Marmora from Waco was just over a two hour drive. That meant two hours of agonizing torture with a half working, finnicky aux, and an AC system on its last leg, doing its best to fight off against the Texas summer heat. Thank God for windows. Lance cracked the glass down immediately, the wind rushing through his dark hair in a way that spoke to him, breathing comforting notations down his back. He was going to be just fine.

Until the truck broke down. Right outside Keith’s ranch, on the outskirts of Marmora. When it came to the tiny town, there was barely enough land to be considered outskirts, but somehow, Lance had managed to land himself there. Another sign that this entire plan was falling apart at the seams. Another reason Lance wanted to just turn around, but with a now refusing to work truck, he was stuck, stranded in the place he should’ve been able to call his second home.

Breathing out a light string of curses, Lance dropped himself out of the vehicle, circling the giant junk of metal to pop open the hood and assess the damage.

Lance… was not having fun right now. Whatever entity was out there clearly was not on his side this week, because the sudden trot of hooves behind him stilled him to his core.

“You okay?” Keith’s voice rang through Lance’s ears. His back was turned to the boy he left behind, thankfully, so he assumed Keith didn’t notice it was him, but the silence that fell over them spoke louder than any excuse Lance could muster up.

So, instead, Lance simply glanced up, feeling his heart drop to his intestines when seeing the boy he fell in love with all that time ago. Keith stared down at Lance, violet eyes swirling with an intensity of thousands of emotions all at once, not a single one the model could place. It was almost scary. Lance used to be able to identify every snippet of vulnerability in the other man’s eyes once upon a time, but both of them knew that was long gone.

“You’re back,” Lance’s heart leapt back up to his throat at the surprising softness in the other man’s tone, and he opened his mouth, only closing it with no idea what to say. What could he say? Oh, yeah, my sister’s getting remarried and I never told her we broke up because our relationship is so strained but she still invited you to her wedding and I might’ve panicked and told her we were both going so I’m here to drag you to this event that neither one of us want to go to -

“...did you drive all the way here in that?” Lance was snapped out of his thoughts when the Keith everyone knew came to front, accent thick with the weight of the six years they’d spent apart. He still didn’t answer. His mouth had gone dry the second his gaze had found Keith’s, any words he wanted to say to him gone in a matter of seconds.

Lance slammed the hood of the truck shut, a bit more aggressive than intended, palms bracing themselves against the metal. His heart pounded and his mind raced, his face focused on his feet as he tried to form the words to explain why he was back here in the first place.

The flick of a lighter pulled Lance from his attempts at kindling a story, his attention shifting to Keith guiding the flame to the end of a cigarette, cupping the orange glow with his palm to keep the miniature blaze from snuffing out. Lance frowned, brows furrowing.

“I thought you quit smoking,” he blurted out before he got the chance to stop himself. Goddamnit. Why was he such an idiot around this man?

Keith stared at him for a long while, studying him, eyes narrowed beneath the leather hat atop the bed of messy black hair Lance used to drag his fingers through all those eons ago. Sticking the unburnt end of the cigarette into his mouth, Lance watched as the other took a long drag from it, before letting it all drift away with the wind in a soft exhale. When Lance finally met his gaze this time, the violet hue was a softer shade as Keith murmured, “I wish I knew how.”

The silence that fell over them a second time held the weight of all the said and unsaid things that happened all those years ago, and Lance felt sick. The guilt had weighed on him, gnawed at his bones, lived as a host to a plague inside him for every hour of every day that had passed since he left this town.

Typically, Lance would take the cigarette and snuff it out. But this time, Keith deserved it after what Lance was about to drop onto him.

Crossing his arms, Lance inhaled, dipping his head as he swallowed thickly, doing anything and everything with his body to keep from having to stand still. It made his skin crawl, being immobilized for so long. It drove him mad.

Keith was the one to crack the quiet haze that had fallen over them once again, speaking only after an exhale of gray smoke fell from his system. “Why are you here, Lance? really.”

Lance’s mouth twitched at the way Keith said his name. No insult, no nickname. Just Lance. That's how it should be. That's what they were. strangers. He couldn’t tell if the thought was comforting or made his stomach churn. Most likely the latter, judging by the way he wanted to crawl into a hole and die. He’d made this situation way more complicated than it had to be, and now he was stranded in the one place he didn’t ever want to step foot back in, because of himself, and now he has to drag Keith with him to this stupid wedding.

Lance was going to blow a lid with the heat beating down his back like this. Frustrated, he dropped his head into his hands, fingers shifting to tug at the brown strands of hair at his hairline, curling harshly against them. “This is so dumb.”

“Sure as hell was a damn dumb idea if it brought you back here,” Keith snapped in a way that was definitely a lot more hostile than intended, but Lance couldn’t bring himself to care entirely. He deserved it. He’d abandoned Keith here to chase his stupid dreams in the stupid city, when all he needed was right here the entire time. “What did you do, Lance?”

Wringing out his wrists now that his fingers had uncoiled themselves from his hair, Lance straightened himself, lower back braced against the hood of his piece of shit car. “My sisters’ getting married.”

Keith blinked. Lance couldn’t get himself to meet that overwhelming sea of purple without wanting to vomit. He stared at his nails instead. “Okay? what… does Veronica getting married have to do with me? Good for her. With the ranch? Why are you here? What did you do ?” 

“I need you to be my boyfriend again,” Lance blurted, the words exploding from him in a breath he couldn’t stop, and he nearly gasped in shock at the way they tumbled out. 

Keith blinked again from atop that horse, something unrecognizable flickering in his gaze as he watched Lance beg for what felt like the impossible.

“Why?”